Mahavitaran to go to court against open access to firm

State-owned power distribution company Mahavitaran will challenge the decision of the Appellate Tribunal of Electricity (ATE) in case of open access to Indo Rama Synthetics, Nagpur, in the Supreme Court. HT reports.

State-owned power distribution company Mahavitaran will challenge the decision of the Appellate Tribunal of Electricity (ATE) in case of open access to Indo Rama Synthetics, Nagpur, in the Supreme Court.

Last month, the tribunal held Mahavitaran guilty of improper conduct and directed the state utility to pay a hefty legal cost to Indo Rama. The case pertains to the appeal against the Maharashtra State Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (MERC) directive to Mahavitaran that it grant Indo Rama Synthetics open access to avail 10MW power from sources outside the state from August 2010.

In open access, consumers can buy more than 1 MW of power from the supplier other than existing distributor; Indo Rama used this facility between September 2009 and August 2010 but it renewed next year.

The tribunal said that the power distribution company had raised issues such as jurisdiction of the electricity commission in deciding the matter and deliberately delayed open access to Indo Rama.

Mahavitaran said that a consumer with connected load of 1MW and above could be granted open access under the provisions of Electricity Act, 2003. “However, the contentious issue in case of Indo Rama is that MERC did not consider levying cross subsidy surcharge while granting access.”

It further added, “If high-end consumers are granted the same without levying cross subsidy surcharge, as was granted to Indo Rama, then lakhs of common consumers, including farmers, power loom owners, BPL families and small and medium consumers having monthly consumption below 100 units will be affected.”